Volunteer

The Maryland Native Plant Society is a completely volunteer-run organization. Please write to info@mdflora.org if you wish to help with one of the activities below, or if you wish to suggest another way to help the Society.

Advocacy

Occasionally, legislation at the state or national level is proposed that will benefit or adversely impact on our natural areas. We need individuals to monitor legislation, in several ways:

to identify State and/or Congressional legislation being proposed, and to inform the Advocacy Committee of the pending legislation;

to monitor the status of the pending legislation, and provide regular status updates;

to add their voices to support or oppose the passage of that legislation.

Places at risk are environmental areas that are in need of immediate protection from enroaching development. If we work together to act now, these places can be put into conservancy, whether through legislation to protect the areas or to add them to the park systems, or through agreements with private landowners. The Society has knowledgeable individuals who advocate for protecting these areas. You can help by adding your voice.

If you know of a site that should be added to this list, please contact info @ mdflora.org.

In addition, we want to expand our conservation advocacy efforts into every county in the State. Our conservation advocates stay on top of local legislation affecting sites within a county, and write and/or provide testimony supporting or opposing that legislation. If you are interested in learning more about becoming a county conservation advocate, please contact info @ mdflora.org.

Annual Conference

The conference planners are always looking for volunteers! See the Annual Fall Conference information page for contact information.

Chapters

Because most people tend to care more about things in their "backyards", the Society has been working to get local chapters established that will focus on education and conservation efforts in a given geographic area. This, of course, requires determined leadership. All chapters are looking forward to having more local volunteers.

If you are interested in volunteering to assist a chapter's steering committee, contact the individuals listed for each chapter.

Field Trips and Workshops

The Field Trips and Workshops are important components of the Society's educational programs. These provide opportunities for attendees to have hands-on exposure to native plants.

The Society needs volunteers to:

plan and lead a field trip; the leader needs to be knowledgeable about the area being explored (e.g., know how to not get lost) and particularly with plant ID, because attendees will ask questions about everything;

conduct a workshop; in the past, we have had workshops on fern identification and on plant propagation.

If you have an event you would like to hold please complete this form and send to fieldtrips at mdflora.org

Invasive Species Removal Projects

Various organizations around the state have restoration project activities, which offer opportunities to learn more about a specific habitat and to identify non-native invasive plants that are having a detrimental impact on the native community. There will be plenty of plant ID opportunities, plus you will learn some management strategies and tactics, and meet other people with similar interests.

Meetings

find a speaker for a meeting; this can include the Society-wide monthly meetings and/or local chapter meetings;

provide refreshments for a meeting;

donate one or more door prizes for a meeting; door prizes can consist of material of interest to the members, such as native plants, books, gardening tools, posters, etc.;

find a sponsor for one or more meetings who can donate door prizes.

Membership

The Society needs volunteers to:

e-mail twice-monthly announcements;

distribute membership recruitment brochures;

have membership information available at meetings and events (regular trip leaders should have a bunch on hand to bring to outings).

We have a Membership Brochure(PDF, ~205KB) available on our web site. Feel free to download, print, and distribute!

Outreach

The Society receives requests for speakers and booth displays. The Society can always use volunteers to:

man our booth at a variety of events around the state;

speak at garden clubs or nature centers, or invite a speaker to talk to your organization.

Plant Lists of MNPS Field Trips

MNPS produces lists of plants seen on a MNPS field trips, which are posted on our web site. Our long-range goal is to monitor changes in populations of native plants over time.

We need volunteers to take part in this interesting and useful activity. You don’t need to be a botanical expert. When you are on a MNPS field trip, stay close to the leader who will be able to give you the names of the plants seen. You can write them down in the field, then print them up and send them to Cris Fleming (cjfleming@aol.com). Please use Word, Word Table, or Excel and make a simple two column list, with the first column containing the scientific name and the second column the common name. Many scientific names have changed recently; we are using the USDA plant list for our authority, but you may use any name in any book. Do not worry if you don’t know a newer name or have misspelled the scientific name and don’t bother to add the family name; other volunteers will take care of all of that. Do be sure to note the place name, the county, the date, the name of the leader(s), and your name(s) as recorder(s). Take a look at the lists on our web site (Plant Lists) for examples of the type of lists we are producing. You can ignore the general information at the top: we have a template for that. Please help us move along with this project on your next MNPS field trip. Our goal is to keep records of all MNPS field trips. Thank you so much for your help!

Publications

The Society needs volunteers to submit articles to Marilandica: stories on meetings, conferences, and other timely tidbits of interest to our readers; book reviews; event photos, etc.; and articles that document both the unique and common aspects of Maryland's native habitats.

To submit articles to the Marilandica editor, send e-mail to info @ mdflora.org.

Publicity

distribute flyers and other items to local libraries where they have information sections;

write articles and/or press releases for local papers;

photograph our events.

Web Site

MNPS could use volunteers to help maintain different areas of the web site. The MNPS web site is hosted in a content management system, with an editor that works like a word-processing program. No HTML coding knowledge is required, but it is helpful to understand it in case something looks funny.

If you are interested in volunteering for any of the above activities, or have a suggestion on what you would like to see (and work on!), please contact info@mdflora.org.